What are some of the rules about the Internet that were taught to you but are now completely ignored?

Dont believe anyone on the internet.

Don’t pick up the phone if someone is online… I’m old

Don't feed the trolls.

Of course nowadays its nearly impossible to tell whos spouting racial slurs to get folks mad and whos doing it because they're just an asshole.

When you share something cool, link back to the original creator or where you found it from.

Social media killed online aliases and I have a hard time deciding if we're all worse for it.

Instinctively I still stick by that, though, as you can tell by my anonymous profile with no bio, but when I volunteer any amount of personal info these days people are often confused that I'm not sharing openly who I am or where I'm from. Every time someone does that it weirds me out because in the 90s telling (and asking) people those things would have been such a suspicious, sketchy move.

When reading a long text, disconnect from the internet as soon as it has loaded so you don't pay for the time you spend reading.

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." -Abraham Lincoln

Social media, a gorilla getting shot, two US elections, and GenAI later, we have completely fallen off this one simple rule.

Don't share your personal information online.

Yeah that's definitely not being followed anymore.

I remember being taught in school to apply source criticism, and that seems to have largely died as a concept.

This was back in the early 2000s...

Don't give your credit card details over the internet.

Nowadays people have them saved in their damn browser for convenience.

I was taught to cite websites by using the date the page was updated. Now I'm lucky if web pages even have a date on them.

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You should use the Internet to get info out of it, not put your info there. If you do want to put info, it should never be traceable to you.

I just don’t get why people want so much of their life online…

Don't top post.

Basic forum etiquette. It's horrifying at work seeing teams "teams" (forums) used like chats, all the cross-posting and thread necromancy, people completely unable to keep topics confined to the appropriate sub-forum, etc

On the Internet I grew up on, pretty much anything was ok except to discuss (or even speculate about) the real-world identities of users who didn't very openly disclose them.

Now many people think the latter is ok.

Don't talk to strangers.

Searching things is easy so don't post something without checking it. People now don't make the slightest effort to verify a rumor or conspiracy crap.

The same people who warned us about the dangers of the internet and not to believe everything, are now the ones readily falling for and spreading conspiracies and lies from social media.

It's tragic.

Never click an ad

Internet is a proper noun and should always be capitalized.

I learned as a kid playing star craft that there are noobs and newbs. Newbs are people new to a game who need help learning. And a noob is someone who has played for a while and refuses to learn and would rather troll.

Don't get into stranger's cars, and don't give out your real name or number or address on the internet.

Now you do most of these things when you call an uber. 😅

Don't meet people from online.

As in real life, it's pretty sound advice to ignore, block or otherwise disengage from trolls and other forms of belligerents. Even in the '90s when I first started using the internet, the phrase of the day was "don't feed the trolls". But people just can't help themselves. They will even reply saying "I know you're a troll, but...".

The Steam forums are a great example, where every other thread is a fake "is this game woke??" screed. The fact that you can be rewarded for being a cunt there with jesters (which translate into points that can be spent to buy profile items) just makes it a thousand times worse. You get 'paid' to be a troll on Steam. It's insanity.

The only anti-troll weapon that works or is needed is oblivion. Let their steaming turd of a post curdle in solitude. Don't even downvote it. Being downvoted is a victory for them, an acknowledgement that they exist and that they've gotten your attention and that they've annoyed you. Shadowban them from your mind. Block them so that no future posts of theirs will infect your screen. Report them so mods can remove/ban them. Just don't engage directly with the post or the user. Don't say "blocked and reported" in the troll's thread/post. Just do it silently.

Don't Feed the trolls

I'm old enough to remember reading about netiquette.

Never trust anything you read on the internet

Then: Don't download applications and run executables you don't fully trust.

Now: Download everyone's new snazzy app just because and scan everything with your phone that contains all your most private information so you can unlock a surprise!

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Don't be a dick.

Stay anonymous

the Internet never forgets

this one goes both ways, if someone is doxing you, it'll be online FOUR FUCKING EVER, but if it was a cool website/funny meme/ good software, it's probably on somebody's downloads folder, but it can easily disappear and you'll never see it again.

A/S/L should be replied when you join a chat room

Read -> Comprehend -> Post

Play Team Fortress on weekends. It's cheaper.

you really think someone would do that? go on the internet and tell lies?

Don't believe everything you see. Actually I was taught that about TV, but for some reason the old folks forgot about it being applicable everywhere in life, not just on TV. They also forget about it on TV too.

Bottom-posting eMails and Usenet posts.

Fuck you, Microsoft. Bottom-posting replies is the correct way to reply.

Make sure you use the right type of search engine for the type of information you want.

Don't feed the trolls

but then I post on lemmy.world and get so so many replies

Sticking around and "lurking" for a bit before you try to engage with a new community, to learn the local etiquette before you make an ass of yourself. Or at least reading the rules as a bare minimum.

Most of them. Don't believe everything you see, don't give out personal information or real-life pictures... the usual.

only 1 hour a day! And if you accidentally click on a wrong link, the hackers can backtrace you or send the internet police.

The rules for abbreviations.

IIRC YMMV bc IANAL

Netspeak fluency has generally given way to textspeak.

1.0 ratio is the low bar, leech

There always have been the nick picks. But now sometimes there is barely any connection between the post and the comments. Like two people with multiple strokes distributed between them having an angry teams call.

Nothing that happens on the internet matters.

Never disclose any real personal info.

Stick with the gopher protocol, http is too poorly implemented.

the rule should be that you don't use your name until you're like 35 and understand how to use it properly

The first rule of usenet.

Boomers are still alive, so literally all of the rules ever as fast as possible.

Special standout for "dont believe everything you read" - "Well fuck you Ill believe everything without thought"

All of them.